Pokerstars owes me...

Tired of my bankroll standing still while it's supposed to be growing, all because Pokerstars still haven't fixed their RNG so that you at least once in a while run close to expectation. And it's not just me with my tiny sample! I'm seeing it in almost every blog I come around, downswing and doomswitch over and over again.

I still have a problem with my neck, so not playing very much. Just once and a while some of my good old favorite regular speed:

Well atleast I have a decent ROI, but the hourly is just funmoney due to the fact I can't play continuously given my §#?%<¤½ NECK.

Wishes for Christmas:

- new neck
- time for 50 sngs a day
- boomswitch

Happy new year all !

Missing Full Tilt

Man, how I miss the good old days at fulltilt. Playing regular speed sng and winning nice and steady, building bankroll one brick after another.

Since I switched to pokerstars I'm getting coolered time after time after time. Was always shaking my head when other players were talking about how stars was rigged and that the RNG was fixed. Sorry guys, now I know what you mean.

It does'nt matter what I play, or what level I play -  just can't win anything. Today I tried 6 tables of $3.50 18mans, and an idiot shoves 21bb from btn with A8 over a limper, and I call from sb with KK and loose. On another table I shove 12bb from sb with AQ and get called from a 15bb stack in bb with T9s ??? and you know the rest...

And finally on the last table sitting in the bb with the smallest stack and 5 players left. Sb who is the 2nd-smallest in chips pushes Q7 into my 44 and I call. Now here the pokergods wanted to help me and said that the sb could not hit his Q or 7 - fine I think - that's almost a win.
Flop comes 9-8-6, and of course - just what I thought... make him find another way to pwn me. But wait, the pokergods give me one last chance to win: they set the rule that he can't win with a straight either! YES man, now I can finally get those chips and get in the money.
Then the turn comes: 8... and that little fucker finds a loophole to f... me up with a 9 on the river and counterfits me or whatever.
It was never ment for me to win that hand - no matter what!

Furthermore my Acer PC is dead - but that's just life I guess, and that's why I have no image of my red line messing around $-cero, while the green line is going upwards. Kick the man while he's down.

No Poker

No playing, no posting, no blogging, no studying, no videos and no nothing in front of the computer.

Just an aching neck and countless treatments from a physiotherapist...

Regulars at pokerstars.

Been trying out the regular speed sng's at pokerstars lately. The BOP had double prizes, so I thought I'd give it a little shot and play my main game where I usually have a good ROI. Things started out very well with my 6 tables; 2 first and a 2nd place. Another set 7 with tables made me one 1st, 2 2nd and one 3rd. But then got the variance coming in the last set of 7 (which was played after the first set of 6).

So not even near any prices, and I think one have to run like god to get on top of BOP. But never mind, this is not something to consider for a common hobbyplayer like myself. The regular speed games, on the other hand, may be something to take under consideration. They seem rather soft compared to the turbos. Only downside is, they take foreeeeever to finish. On average they take just under one hour, but at the time of day I play they load rather slow, and when you get to a win it can have been running for almost 80 minutes!

And as usual a little graph from a very little sample:

If it somehow would be possible to obtain a 15-20% ROI it might be profitable to play these instead of the turbos. So maybe I continue where I left off at full tilt - playing the regulars...

Motivation.

Have been reading some books lately on how to develop your personality, especially on setting goals and being motivated. This is intended for use in my approach to poker, but can of course also be used in other contexts.
Of the books I highly recommend "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" written by Stephen R. Covey.

Not surprisingly, it is said that it is the fifth best-selling book in the world, and I think many things reviewed in it can be related to poker. Let me show you some text from habit one which is called "Be proactive":

Being Proactive is about taking responsibility for your life. You can't keep blaming everything on your parents or grandparents. Proactive people recognize that they are "response-able." They don't blame genetics, circumstances, conditions, or conditioning for their behavior. They know they choose their behavior. Reactive people, on the other hand, are often affected by their physical environment. They find external sources to blame for their behavior. If the weather is good, they feel good. If it isn't, it affects their attitude and performance, and they blame the weather. All of these external forces act as stimuli that we respond to. Between the stimulus and the response is your greatest power--you have the freedom to choose your response.

Instead of reacting to or worrying about conditions over which they have little or no control, proactive people focus their time and energy on things they can control. The problems, challenges, and opportunities we face fall into two areas--Circle of Concern and Circle of Influence.

 Proactive people focus their efforts on their Circle of Influence. They work on the things they can do something about: health, children, problems at work. Reactive people focus their efforts in the Circle of Concern--things over which they have little or no control: the national debt, terrorism, the weather. Gaining an awareness of the areas in which we expend our energies in is a giant step in becoming proactive.

- guess you can see the relations to poker, especially if you're facing a downswing.

On the pokerplaying front, I again found myself in my so called "pokernowhereland" dabbling around in different sng-games; 45man, 18man, 6max and 9man turbos, unable to settle down and concentrating on one single game. At least I'm doing very well in everything - especially in multitables - although samples as usual are small:

Think it ends in a choice between 18man turbo and 9man turbo.

Tough games.

Finally time for a post, and finally today I had the urge for playing some 9man sng. Went rather well, as I in just 6 games had one 3rd place and tree WINS!

These were all turbo's and only at low stakes, but man, these games are getting somewhat tougher. Seemingly it's not unusual to see all 9 players still around at bb200, bubbleplay starting at bb400 and Hu-play when blinds are 500/1000.

Although I'm doing okay in these turbo's (13.2% EV-ROI) so far, I'm contemplating moving to PokerStars and continue playing what I do best, which is the regular speed game. The only thing hindering me is my low volume, because rakeback will be almost cero at Stars compared with my 27% at FullTilt.

"But you only have to play around 200 games a month" you say - yes, but remember I play as a hobby and don't wanna be a grinder.

But who really cares - summer is here, holiday is here and soon me my wife and kid are off to Grece and the lovely island of Crete. So happy holidays everyone!

Ohh and last but not least some nice piece of music i recently stumbled upon:

No games running

I was - according to plan/goal - slowly starting on $20 regular speed sng, but after black friday I completely had to change my goals of becoming a regular speed reg!

Earlier when I played my $10's I could load my set rather quickly, but now take a look at my future battlefield:

absolutely nothing going on!

So to prevent not again ending in poker nowhereland, I instantly made a dicision on moving to turbo's instead. Starting out on the $6.5 level with around 60BI (cashed +$800 out) and only 4-tabling as I gotta get used to the faster pace.

Even though the bitch and my ma'am now having to almost live next door, thing are looking fine:

EV ROI is at 18.3% which I don't think (know) I can keep, but maybe around 10-15% when I get to 6-9 tables. And I think this will be my first goal; adding tables and then move up.

See you at the tables...

Beers and bitches.

The bitch called variance would not leave, so I left her by stop playing! Furthermore games was starting rather slow pre black friday, but now it's even worse - much worse.

The bright side of it though, is that summer has come early here in Denmark, so I have been working the garden instead, and just had a nice weekendtrip to Germany, filling up the car with cheap beers and stuff which is rather expencive in my country.

And if you ever come across this beer:

then don't hesitate, and just buy some. It's my absolutely favorite, and even if it's imported from Germany, it's certainly still a Danish beer! Apart from being some of the best pokerplayers, we also make some of the worlds best beers. (cheers ;-D)

But back to poker. Sometimes when I'm persecuted from a bitch at one site, I tend to switch to another and hope to stay out of her way. So I have mengled a bit with my old 45man spiced with some 18man, and those are still under consideration to be my new main game if fulltilt don't catch up in volume.

Here's the graph:

Now that's my Ma'am talking!

The bitch is back!

Yes she is back. That freaking little sucker of an RNG bitch - called variance - is back. Worst thing is that I don't know how long she's gonna stay, and funny thing is, most times I get outdrawn on the RIVER! It's like the RNG has to hurt me the most possible, and after seeing the flop and turn without getting fuc..., then BAM! - throw the 3-outer in my face on the river.

Here's a litte shot of running bad:

And please don't mention samplesize - I know! But everything does not have to be in big scale, and as a hobbyplayer; I play in small scale.
At least I'm still obtaining my main - in game - goal of getting to the bubble. As you can see i have plenty of 4th places, only have to convert them into 3rd, 2nd and 1st places.

So when I don't have the urge the tangle with that kind of madness, and play less, time is not wasted. Instead I do what I do best; Study. I have allready checked out the next level of $20+2 regular sng, and found that fish is still around, and also tagged the regulars. So when the variance turns around - or just settles to cero - I'm ready to move up!

Here's a little look of my spreadsheet for checking out some players:

Hope to be back soon with a winning graph.

Never to become a grinder.

Playing poker ? - YES. Grinding ? - NO.
But why not ? - Because I don't have to, and I guess I don't want to.

Lately I haven't been playing much, mostly caused by having a cold and coughing my lungs out, but also because I'm in a breakeven streak in my games.

These tiny obstructions leads me to not wanna play, and this is why I have to admit I will never be a grinder. Furthermore, spring is coming and my garden is calling me along with more time to be spend outside the house enjoying the warmer weather and more bright hours.

I'm just born in the wrong year. If I was born just 15-18 years ago, I would be grinding poker now, putting in hours and hours of that unendless physical and mental energy that only young people have. Now I have other and more important things in my life to do, and I guess thats the way life is, so I have to settle with poker being a hobby.

Some GREAT music to go with this post:

Folding an +EV call.

Are we allways to make +EV calls? Well basically, it should not be wrong to make those calls - even the thinnest ones. But I'm sure many of you sharks out there have had many spots where you have folded even if it was a call, or not shoved in given +EV spots also.

I found a (for me) pretty clear spot the other day where I fold my hand although it was a +EV call. Here it comes:


What we know is that UTG and BTN is tight, and that the bigstack not have taking advantage of his chiplead by folding most hands.

We actually don't need to call risking to loose over half our stack, and most likely we are behind or in a coinflip which we absolutely have no need taking. But the most importing aspect is that if we fold, then in the next hand - givin the bigstack keeps folding - we can push pretty wide into the tight BB, and the hand after is a perfect bubble-setup for pushing any2.

I'm still struggling with some variance, but my winning sessions are bigger than my losing ones, and when I get hammered in the $10 I just play some $5. Its almost like there's no variance in those.
A nice consolation was my 2nd place in a VIP freeroll for $525.50 - I should play more MTTs...

Variance in life?

Is variance only something you talk about in poker? Or may it occur in our life also?

Of course it can! This is not a concept that only is related to poker, but fundamentally and scientifically can be defined by chaos theory.

Now I don't want to get too much into this theory, but one might describe it somewhat like "everything is probable".

Like when you mix a deck of cards, it would theoretically be likely to have mixed the cards so that they lie in order aces to kings in different colours.

Ultimately, one can imagine to mix 2 colours of paint, which then turns into a third colour. It is acc. chaos theory possible (because you mix a number of molecules together), after mixing the colours well together, again to get 2 separate colours!

Anyway, back to the variance in life. I personally got acquainted with life-variance here recently, thankfully, only a mechanical one of them:

1. chain broke on my son's bike $ 55
2. my cell phone went in the washing machine + $ 200
3. my son's newly purchased used moped leaked gasoline $ 36
4. steering box on my car broke $ 1.667!

all within 2 days as attributable to variance. Most likely, we can now look forward to the next several years without any mechanical problems.

Knowing when to slow down

You know you are doing well and running good when your days looks like this:

+$34.89
+$28
+$118
-$17
+$28
+$46
+$33
+$105
+$46
+$34.63
+$38
+$60

And - visa versa - you know when things are SOMEWHAT different:

-$14.25
-$3
-$3
-$1.10
-$17.25

all amounts from playing 6-8 tables of $10+1. Though I have to admit, todays session was starting with loading the $10 and ended with loading some $2 - LMAO.

I somehow (funny hah) felt the variance sneaking up on me the last many days/sets, and when my first table of todays $10 started (ended!) like this:

Full Tilt Poker Game: $10 + $1 Sit & Go (214179879), Table 1 - 20/40 - No Limit Hold'em - 03:26:42 ET - 2011/01/24

Seat 1: Clinto_NZ (1,310)
Seat 2: R Calazans (1,215)
Seat 3: Firmian (2,285)
Seat 4: Sweetdeals (1,075)
Seat 5: PokaProphet (1,250)
Seat 6: Juanin52 (1,455), is sitting out
Seat 7: HERO (1,080)
Seat 8: ecirtap1977 (1,970)
Seat 9: Slickville (1,860)
ecirtap1977 posts the small blind of 20
Slickville posts the big blind of 40
The button is in seat #7
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to HERO [Tc Th]
Clinto_NZ folds
R Calazans folds
Firmian folds
Sweetdeals folds
PokaProphet folds
Juanin52 folds
HERO raises to 120
ecirtap1977 folds
Slickville calls 80
*** FLOP *** [4s 6h 5s]
Slickville bets 360
HERO raises to 960, and is all in
Slickville calls 600
HERO shows [Tc Th]
Slickville shows [As 5d]
*** TURN *** [4s 6h 5s] [8s]
*** RIVER *** [4s 6h 5s 8s] [Js]
HERO shows a pair of Tens
Slickville shows a flush, Ace high
Slickville wins the pot (2,180) with a flush, Ace high

I just knew how my path of badbeats was laid out for me. And of course I had to be humiliated with a runner runner flush. FFS just give him an A or another 5. This hand also shows you why these games are so juicy, but variance rules!

Only consolation is that I'm able to cut my losses to a minimum, but I'm seriously considering just playing the $2+0.25 to reduce losses further. Also I can juggle a bit with more tables, setups, and playing continuous, so that I'm prepared when things turn normal.

This day needs some song with power, and I introduce to you the Danish band "Nephew"

Raping the regulars

Okay, don't misunderstand me. I'm not messing with some REG player,  just running over the regular sng-tables as you can see:

Yes looks amazing - right? Nevertheless, taking out the luck I'm still running at 24.8% EV-adjusted ROI for the $10+1, so when variance settles I guess it's going to fade out somewhere between 15-20%, hopefully just around 20%. The ITM also looks like something one would wish would last forever, and it's nice to have some ROI and ITM to "spend".

As you can see I have played a few sets with 8 tables which have been going rather well, only trouble is how to arrange those 8 tables on my screen. At some point I have to consider playing more tables for higher $/hour, but maybe I'll stick to my old plan of moving up through the limits with just 4-6 tables - remember I'm not playing for the money (yearh right) but for the challenge.

When megatabling, you are missing many valuable spots. One is, when someone is betting into a pot without you having a hand. But playing fewer tables you can have full control and find spots where you can take control of the play. Here I will show you some:

Full Tilt Poker Game #27174042783: $10 + $1 Sit & Go, Table 1 - 50/100 - No Limit Hold'em - 03:19:32 ET - 2011/01/11
Seat 1: IrishCubsFan1 (1,150)
Seat 2: New Yoyk (2,750)
Seat 3: MattySpacowski2 (1,035)
Seat 5: lvtravellers (2,380)
Seat 6: funk1 (2,050)
Seat 7: HERO (2,240)
Seat 9: Oliver Grinder (1,895)
funk1 posts the small blind of 50
HERO posts the big blind of 100
The button is in seat #5
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to HERO [Kh 6h]
Oliver Grinder folds
IrishCubsFan1 folds
New Yoyk folds
MattySpacowski2 folds
lvtravellers folds
funk1 has 15 seconds left to act
funk1 calls 50
HERO checks
*** FLOP *** [Jc 3c 7h]
funk1 bets 100
HERO has 15 seconds left to act
HERO raises to 245
funk1 folds
Uncalled bet of 145 returned to HERO
HERO mucks
HERO wins the pot (400)

His minbet screams steal - and I'm not likely to let those 200(300) go without a fight - so a little raise does the job.

Here is one HU from another game:

Full Tilt Poker Game #27174366521: $10 + $1 Sit & Go, Table 1 - 150/300 - No Limit Hold'em - 03:51:55 ET - 2011/01/11
Seat 6: Spanky25 (5,220)
Seat 9: HERO (8,280)
HERO posts the small blind of 150
Spanky25 posts the big blind of 300
The button is in seat #9
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to HERO [8s 7d]
HERO calls 150
Spanky25 checks
*** FLOP *** [As Tc Ks]
Spanky25 bets 300
HERO has 15 seconds left to act
HERO raises to 745
Spanky25 calls 445
*** TURN *** [As Tc Ks] [5c]
Spanky25 checks
HERO bets 945
Spanky25 has 15 seconds left to act
Spanky25 folds
Uncalled bet of 945 returned to HERO
HERO mucks
HERO wins the pot (2,090)

Again I don't value his donkbet much, and think I can get him to fold if I raise. But when he calls he must have something, most likely some kind of a draw, the king or the ten. The river is a blank, so when he checks I'm pretty sure he will fold to a second bullet where I can rep an ace or even a str8 - and he does!

Now all good things come to an end, and lately my luck has been fading out - running even-EV - and my last 2 sets have been -EV, so maybe my next post will be about variance?

Trying the $20+2

Could not resist trying out the next level, so started up 2 tables of $20+2 regular sng.

Had a pretty good start on the first table, but then ran a little carddead. Then at level 40/80 I have queens in the bigblind, and face an UTG+1 3x raise. My stack is 1595 so I don't want to push, and just call hoping not to see an ace. Flop comes 3 blanks under 9 and I checkraise him all-in, just to see two kings! But a lovely lady shows up on the river. I make 3rd place shoving 9bb with K6 into A9s.

On the second table I make it to the bubble with 3rd in chips, but then 17 hands in a row I get NO cards and NO opportunities to push . Furthermore I sit after the low stack who is a REG, and the REG has a fish to his right who folds or limps his small blind to him. And of course I have another REG sitting after me! If only the seating had been different I think i could have made it in the money here also?

Have to say that if I had not been lucky in BOTH games, I would have lost the $44.

This level however, is almost like another world of playing. Usually I study the next level before trying it out so that I have the regs marked, but this time I did it in game. And when we finished I saw that I had been playing 3 regs in each game. Not +EV!

Still, most players at this level knows what they are doing. But when I have gathered some more money on level $10+1 and have studied and found the regs in level $20+2 - I will move up, and I will counqer!